Pensions, quarry on Mendocino County BOS agenda

The county's pension system, and hearings for the Harris Quarry project in Willits and the Rowland Bar in the Dos Rios area are topics on the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors' Tuesday meeting agenda.

At 9:30 a.m., the board will hold a "priority-setting session" on the future of the county's retirement system and "strategies to mitigate the county's long-term financial exposure." The discussion includes two speakers on 1937 Act law, under which Mendocino County's pension system was established.

At 1:30 p.m., the board will hold a hearing on a vested rights determination and proposed change to a reclamation plan for the Harris Quarry project about seven miles south of Willits.

The project's use permit and reclamation plan renewal, approved in June 2012, allows the removal of up to 200,000 cubic yards of material rock per year from the hillside quarry and production of up to 150,000 tons of asphalt per year from the processed material.

"No asphalt processing is requested as part of the vested operation," according to a summary prepared for the board.

Also in question is the applicant's request for a vested right to mine 200,000 cubic yards of rock annually on two parcels totaling 91 acres, according to the summary. The site was mined as early as 1929, county staff writes, but "applicable case law provides that a vested right to continue a nonconforming use extends only to the property on which the use existed at the time zoning regulations changed and then the use became a nonconforming use."

More information is needed about past mining operations at the quarry before the county can determine where the applicant has a vested right to mine, according to the summary.

At 3:30 p.m., the board will hold a hearing on a vested rights mining operation for the Rowland Bar in the Dos Rios area.

County staff is asking the board to approve a reclamation plan for the instream surface mining operation recognized as a vested right, which allows the extraction of up to 50,000 cubic yards of material annually. The gravel bar in question lies at the confluence of the Main stem and Middle Fork of dthe Eel River.